Today, in Fresh Beckettian Hell: Naturalize This!
Morning, my loves. I was going to provide y’all with a substantial list of reading material this morning, carefully curated just for your pretty little faces, a delicate balance of tough-to-read news with pop culture and a dash of puppy gifs.
But last night it was reported yesterday that “Federal officials are planning to collect social media information on all immigrants, including permanent residents and naturalized citizens”. That’s right, this humble newsletter could eventually be used as evidence to, what? Strip me of citizenship? And lest you think I just read the BuzzFeed headline and proceeded to word vomit into the Ulysses app, I even went and checked out the federal registry for y’all:
(and yes, this list went on for days.)
Yes, you can argue that social media is public, and that yes, Obama expanded the surveillance state, and that yes, I should have assumed - which I did because I always assume the half-filled glass will explode and cut my hand somehow - that everything I put online was being tracked when I went through the naturalization process, and yes, you can say that those who have taken the oath of citizenship will be fiiiiiiiine.
But for the Department of Homeland Security to so brazenly lay that out… my goodness this is a glorious time to be alive and able to read words on the internet and try to exist in a society without constant anxiety attacks. Obvi, I am Not A Lawyer, but may I remind anyone who told me not to worry after the election because “at least you’re a citizen now” that laws and regulations are made and enforced by humans. And human beings can be cruel, and change their minds, and change the goalposts. And to every naturalized-or-not immigrant, who reads this, who is not a white middle class female without an accent like me, who’s world has has been so greatly impacted since the great golden escalator descent: I see you.
And then I woke up this morning and saw that Trump essentially hurricane-blamed Puerto Rico in the midst of his sports-related twitter tantrums and nuclear war-baiting, and that so much of Trumpworld is using their personal email accounts to do White House business, and then I remembered that Obama’s tan suit occupied media cycles, PLURAL, and that WE MADE JIMMY CARTER GIVE UP HIS PEANUT FARM FOR GOD’S SAKE. So I started listening to the latest episode of 2 Dope Queens instead of reading. Because seriously folks, WTF is this fresh Beckettian hell we live in right now?
But my darlings, I will never deprive you of a puppy gif.
Be kind to each other, won't you?